


i'm the night sky (i'm the fire in your eyes)

by notcaycepollard



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, I just have a lot of feelings already, Pining, about powerful rebel leader women in white dresses, and the soldiers who would do anything for them, what do you mean "it's ridiculous to write a fic based solely on a trailer"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-08
Updated: 2016-04-08
Packaged: 2018-06-01 00:51:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6494353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notcaycepollard/pseuds/notcaycepollard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lady Mothma isn't a queen or a princess. But, Jyn thinks. She's royalty, still, even though her hair is cut shorter than Jyn's. If Lady Mothma needed a knight, Jyn would fight for her.</p><p>Jyn would even go on her knees, she thinks. Perhaps Lady Mothma needs someone to hold the hem of that white, white robe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm the night sky (i'm the fire in your eyes)

The first time, she's nine years old and already chafing at what it is to be a girl, and powerless, and alone in the galaxy.

It's a rare occasion, this Republic visit. A chance to see the child queen of Naboo, and the shiftmothers of the orphanage seem more excited than anyone else, even Brea who's eight and plays at princesses every time it's her turn to pick the game. There are other dignitaries, stately in robes and gilt, but it's Padmé everyone's there for.

Jyn doesn't care. Jyn doesn't like princesses  _or_ queens _._ Brea tells her she's not pretty enough to be a princess anyway, even if she wanted to be. She fights with the boys, and her hair's so tangled the shiftmothers always cut it short.

"You can be a knight," Brea says, as if it's a dubious honor, and Jyn curls her lip. She'd rather be a knight than one of the girls holding the hem of Brea's robe. Knights fight, and they don't go down on their knees like handmaidens do.

Brea's wearing her robe now, as if Queen Amidala might recognize royalty, and Jyn thinks it looks stupid enough. It's threadbare, pretend, a robe for a play princess. Nothing but a scrap of fabric left over when the orphanage rehung its curtains. Nothing like the things Jyn's seen in holos, or like the dress she can see on the child queen, when she squints at the faraway balcony.

There's another girl on the stage, she thinks. Someone she's more interested in than the child queen in all her finery. Someone all in white, gleaming like a beacon, like she's never once run through a mud puddle or tried to fix an engine. Jyn likes her looks, although she doesn't know quite why.

"Shiftmum," she says, tugs at the shiftmother's sleeve. "Shiftmum Keola, who's that behind Padmé? The one in all white?" Keola shades her eyes, looks for the girl, confers with one of the other shiftmothers.

"Lady Mothma," Keola tells her just as Jyn's beginning to get impatient. "A Lady of Chandrila. They say she's about to join the Senate."

Lady Mothma isn't a queen or a princess. But, Jyn thinks. She's royalty, still, even though her hair is cut shorter than Jyn's. If Lady Mothma needed a knight, Jyn would fight for her.

Jyn would even go on her knees, she thinks. Perhaps Lady Mothma needs someone to hold the hem of that white, white robe.

 

 

The second time, she's seventeen, and she's been alone in the galaxy for two years now, and she's learning what it is to need power, when you're a girl and alone like she's alone. You've got to fight for every scrap of it, not like a knight but with teeth and nails and kicking.

She carries a blaster, tucks knives everywhere she can, keeps her hair short and her clothes loose and her face in shadow. She's been arrested twice already, learned how to talk her way out of arrest when necessary and resist arrest every other time. The petty criminals are beginning to mutter that Jyn Erso is not a girl to try and that she cheats at sabacc, but if you need someone to steal or forge, well, there are worse people to go to than her.

It keeps her in coin, enough that she's begun to think about getting off this rock and out into the galaxy. She could go anywhere, with enough money. A core world, maybe. Somewhere she can properly disappear.

 _Chandrila_ , she thinks, before she can help it, but she wouldn't find Lady Mothma there. She's a Senator now, a leader of the world, no more within reach than the stars Jyn can only see when the smog lifts. She'd have to try her luck in Coruscant, and she doesn't know much but she knows enough that it's a child's dream.

She goes to Hosnian Prime instead, works crew on a Corellian freighter and hops her way across systems, and it's by chance alone that when they get into port, Senator Mothma is arriving in state.

They're not close enough for speaking, obviously. They're hardly close enough for Jyn to see anything at all. There's red carpet, and dignitaries, and their battered freighter is parked about as far off as the port authorities can order them. Jyn unloads cargo, and watches the state procession. Senator Mothma glows, still, clean and gleaming white. When she walks, she holds her chin up like she's wearing a crown, floats over that red carpet so elegant Jyn can hardly breathe for the grace of it. 

Jyn looks down at the grease under her own nails, once they're gone, and thinks, she's never going to be a lady, but at least she knows how to fight. She'll learn swagger like she's a scoundrel, and it might not hold grace but when she squares her shoulders and her jaw, raises her chin, she wonders if this is the power Lady Mothma carries.

 

 

The third time, she's trying to escape Theed and the bounty on her head, and the problem is a child queen's funeral and all the ports tangled with mourners arriving in crowds.

Jyn doesn't care about a queen gone too soon, or the fate of the galaxy with the Republic crumbling, or the fall of the Jedi order. She hears it all, in snippets of conversation around her, but all she can think is _stars above, they're going to find me, I've got to get out_. A thought on panicked repeat, the prickle of adrenaline and cold sweat on her spine. Her hands clenching around the butt of her blaster. There'd be no state funeral for her, she knows. No flowers, no pretty words. No women in white to farewell her.

There's a noise from the crowd, and she looks up in sharp terror for the bounty hunter no doubt approaching, weapons raised. There's no hunter. No weapons. It's just a reaction to whatever's going on in the huge viewscreens hung up all over the city. All the royalty assembled, kings and queens and senators like players on a holochess board. If Padmé is the fallen queen, the end of the game can't be far behind. Jyn remembers when she'd dreamed of being a knight. She feels, now, like she's hardly even a pawn.

Something glimmers white in the nearest viewscreen, and she gazes up before she realizes she's doing it. Lady Mothma, her face impassive and serene, but Jyn thinks, somehow, that the set of her small shoulders is sad. Jyn grits her teeth, lowers her head, makes for the port. She's got to leave while she's got air in her lungs to breathe.

It's not until later, until she's lying in a bunk and feeling her heart hammer in her chest at the narrowness of her escape, that she lets herself wonder. The child queen and her lady companion must, surely, have been friends. Allies, perhaps, in the political scrapyard that is the Senate. A friendship that goes back a decade, and now Padmé is gone. No wonder Mothma's shoulders looked so sorrowful. Jyn chews her lip, and wishes she could take that grief, carry the burden for her.

 

 

The fourth time, she's thirty (thirty five? twenty nine? she's stopped counting, years back) and she's in handcuffs like a common prisoner. Maybe she is. She's common enough, even if she's not a common thief these days. Rebel Alliance soldiers are nothing special, and Jyn's good at fighting but never at  _being good_.

Lady Mothma -  _Chancellor_ Mothma, now, but Jyn's called her  _lady_ for so long - is as calm and beautiful as always. In white, even in this grubby little Rebel control center. Jyn wouldn't have expected anything less.

(She's more beautiful close up, Jyn can't help but notice. She's never been this close before. The same room, and Mothma looking at her. They've always existed in the same galaxy, but Jyn could never quite believe it, until now.)

"On your own from the age of fifteen. Reckless, aggressive, and undisciplined," Mothma says. Lays it out, a damning indictment, and  _oh_ , her voice, so cool and measured.  _On your own_ , like it's just another character flaw Jyn's personally responsible for.

"This is a rebellion, isn't it? I  _rebel_ ," she counters, because it's that or falling to her knees and offering up devotion at the hem of her lady's robe. Perhaps it achieves a smile, before Mothma lowers her eyes. Jyn's watching her face so carefully, but this is a woman who's been a politician for twenty years by now.

"We have a mission for you," the Chancellor tells her, and Jyn wants to tell her,  _go to hell_. Not like a pawn filling its role, but a player who's determined not to be part of the game. They've clapped her in handcuffs, hauled her in here, had her charges dragged over by officers so officious her knuckles are itching to start punching. She won't be their knight.

(But she'll be Mothma's. She'll always be Mothma's. She says _yes_ , and she thinks, perhaps, Lady Mothma knew she would.)

 

 

The fifth time she sees Lady Mothma, she's about to leave for this mission. A knight making her first move, jumping out into the board. Jyn thinks she's probably going to die, stealing these plans, but perhaps better a thief in service to her queen than the thief she's been up until now. She takes a long breath, looks down at her hands, her knuckles still bruised from the last fight. It's time to leave.

There's a knock at her bunk door, and she stands to answer. It slides open before she can get there, and suddenly she's standing to attention, all her scoundrel swagger gone.

"At ease, soldier," the Chancellor tells her, and Jyn blows out her breath, relaxes a little. "I came to wish you good journey. You'll take care, won't you?"

"Haven't died up 'til now," Jyn says, twists her mouth into a smirk. "I'll do my best to keep it up."

"Farewell, Jyn Erso," Mothma murmurs, touches one hand to her shoulder and rests it there longer than Jyn expects. "The hopes of the Alliance go with you." She's smaller than Jyn thought she'd be, now that they're standing so close. Jyn has almost a head of height on her. The Lady Mothma looks ageless, her face sweet and radiant and pure, and Jyn feels her heart thump hard.

"I'll try," she gets out, feeling stupid and earnest, and Mothma smiles again. Wider than she had in the control room, less like she's amused and more like she wants to like Jyn.  _Oh_ , Jyn thinks,  _please, my lady, I-_

"That's all I can ask," Mothma says, and pulls her into an embrace, brushes a kiss to her cheek. Jyn turns her head at the last minute, catches Mothma's mouth with her own, and fuck,  _fuck_ , it's graceless and blunt and clumsy. She steps back, mortified, her cheeks hot. Tries not to look, as Mothma thoughtfully presses fingertips against her own lips. She's been in love with Mon Mothma for the past twenty years, she knows, but she, Jyn Erso, has only existed for this fair lady for the last three days at most.

"I'm sorry," she squeaks, "I am, that was- I, uh-"  _I'd go to my knees for you_ , she thinks again,  _surely you know I would_ , and Mothma touches her palm to Jyn's jaw, lifts her face until Jyn is looking at her.

"Later," she says, "if you-  _when_ you return, we'll talk again." And then she leans up, kisses Jyn on the mouth very sweet and light and gentle, and is gone in a swirl of clean white robes.

Jyn fights. Fights like she's a girl, but not powerless, and not alone in this galaxy, not with Mon Mothma's kiss resting soft on her lips and her promise in Jyn's heart. Lady Mothma needs a knight, and Jyn will fight for her.


End file.
